Madison County 9-1-1 assistant director Ricky Hix (L) and director David Camp got the county emergency dispatch system rolling in 1999. They’ve overseen the county 9-1-1 department ever since and recently announced they will retire March 31, 2019. Zach Mitcham/staff

Ricky Hix remembers the birth of the Madison County 9-1-1 system on May 30, 1999.
It was — well — an actual birth.
“I can tell you what the first call was,” said Hix, the county’s long-time assistant 9-1-1 director. “The first call that came into this 9-1-1 center. And I was sitting on what is CAD 2 (one of the dispatcher stations) now. It was a lady in labor, having a baby. I was scared to death. That was the first call. I don’t remember which dispatcher handled it. But I remember when it rang and what it was.”
Hix and 9-1-1 director David Camp were the “labor-and-delivery” team for the county 9-1-1 system, helping get all the equipment set up, the addresses in place, all the dispatchers trained and set to direct emergency traffic. And for two decades, they have overseen the facility tucked in a little hideaway brick house on Wagner Lane in Danielsville next to the old Hart house that no longer stands.
But the two friends will share their final work day together in 2019 after 20 years overseeing county emergency communications. The two recently announced that they will both retire effective March 31. Camp said Hix announced that date, and then he felt it would also be a good final day for him, giving him time with the new 9-1-1 director — who will be sought in coming months — to train him or her in the job for three months. The new 9-1-1 director will oversee the selection of an assistant to replace Hix.
“I felt like three months would be a good time (for training a new director),” said Camp, who worked for the Athens-Clarke County Police Department from 1972-1998 and retired with the rank of Major (uniform division commander).
County commission chairman John Scarborough said Camp and Hix will be hard to replace.
“While I cheer their service and accomplishments throughout the years, I, along with many folks that have worked with and known David Camp and Ricky Hix will sorely miss them and their steady leadership in our 911 system,” said Scarborough. “As a team they have moved Madison County’s 911 service into a true, front-line, first responder role. Their integration with law enforcement and emergency medical service has provided life-saving assistance to countless people for more than twenty years. We thank them.”

Camp said much has changed since the Pre-Y2K days of dispatching. There’s a new, IP-based phone system that is a step toward “Next Generation 9-1-1,” which is a move from old, analog systems to digital communications. The call volume is higher than it was 20 years ago. And in the early days, most all calls were from landlines. That’s certainly not the case in the smartphone era.
“I always use the intersection of Glenn Carrie and Hwy. 29,” said Camp, who started with Madison County on Oct. 19, 1998. “With landlines, Blazers was on one corner, the Shell Station was on another, Bill’s Barbecue and the Golden Pantry on the others. Whenever you had an accident at that intersection, we’d get four calls, one from each corner. Now, when we get a wreck there, it floods us with 9-1-1 calls, because everybody comes by and reports it, and I don’t want to discourage people from doing that. That’s just part of what the call volume consists of.”
There have been many unnecessary calls over the years — like the people who have used 9-1-1 instead of 4-1-1. There are some people who tend to call 9-1-1 out of loneliness more than emergencies. But there are indeed plenty of emergencies and memorable calls.
Both remember the 2011 call that former dispatcher Rita Fulcher got. A wounded car wreck victim, Bradley Neal Fleming of Elberton who was 25 at the time, sat on the train track off Hwy. 72 in Carlton unable to move. A train blasted its whistle and chugged straight for him. A passerby, Norb Krazk of Loganville, 49 at the time, hurried down a hill and dragged Fleming to safety just before the locomotive slammed into the wrecked car. After that incident, Camp praised the performance of dispatchers Fulcher, who took the call from Krazk as the train approached, along with Mollie Smith-Reeves and Irene Jordan, who dispatched emergency crews, while also trying to get in touch with CSX to get the train stopped prior to the collision.
Camp and Hix were quick to praise those who take such calls locally, saying they feel Madison County has a history of excellent dispatchers.
“At a meeting the other day, I told them (the dispatchers), we built the place, y’all made it work,” said Camp. “Without them, this operation doesn’t work.”
Camp said dispatchers are the “red-headed step children of public safety.”
“You never see them,” said Camp. “There’s a sign on the door (in the 9-1-1 center) that says ‘you’re the most important people’ you’ll never see. And that’s very true. They take the calls and you’re out there in the field and you have things going on at an accident scene, and you see all the red lights and blue lights coming and the sirens, those are the people you remember. Seldom ever do they remember the dispatchers who got all the information and provided the correct response as quickly as possible.”
Hix concurs.
“We may have walked in here and got the building ready and set some guidelines, but the dispatchers are the ones that make the place work,” said Hix, who started with Madison County in May 1997 with 9-1-1 and code-enforcement duties, but soon switched solely to 9-1-1. He worked as a brick mason, with Seaboard Coast Line Railroad and with the Carlton Post Office prior to working for the county.
Life in public safety carries its battle scars — for 9-1-1 personnel, law officers, firefighters, paramedics, coroners, anyone up close on life-and-death situations. Hix shared one incident, a death, that haunts him every day, even though about 15 years have passed. He gave details about it, then asked for those details to be omitted as he thought about the family.
“That will stick with you — every day. I think about it every day,” said Hix.
Camp and Hix have a wide range of memories and shared experience. There is a close proximity to sad community occurrences and emergencies. But the two also enjoy a lot of laughs, especially after they heat up a meal in the 9-1-1 kitchen and sit in Camp’s office at lunch. Both say there are things they’ll miss when hang it up.
“I’ll miss it,” said Hix. “But it’s time to go, I’m ready to do some other things.”
He said he has about 75 cows. He’ll work with them and looks forward to spending more time with his wife, kids and grandkids. He’ll camp, hunt and fish, too.
Camp said he feels like it’s time for new people to take the reins of the county 9-1-1 system.
“I hate to leave here,” he said. “I’m gonna’ miss the people and the job. This is something we built up together. I’ve had fun making gadgets and things like that still in operation. It’s just time to go on. And the county needs some new blood in here, I think. My wife and I hope to do some traveling, maybe up the east coast.”
And the phones, no doubt, will keep ringing, 24/7/365, with dispatchers manning the control room that the two set up.
And help will be on the way in Madison County.